“There's not much to know. I'm actually pretty dull,” she said, and he laughed again.
“Are you brushing me off?”
“Maybe,” she said honestly. “Actually, I don't date.”
“You just work?” He looked amused, and she nodded in answer to his question. “Perfect. We ought to get along fine. All I do is work too, but I figure one of us has to break the cycle.”
“Why? It suits us.” She suddenly seemed very distant and a little frightened, which made him wonder about her.
“Will you just have lunch with me once for heaven's sake? Just try it. You have to eat. I'll come uptown if you want, during the week. Whatever you like.” But she didn't like. She liked him, but she didn't want to date any man, and she didn't know how to tell him.
Eventually, she agreed to have lunch with him the following Saturday. It was a freezing cold day and they went to La Scala for pasta.
“All right, now tell the truth. What brought you to St. Mary's?”
“The bus.” She grinned at him, and she looked very young and playful.
“Very cute,” and then suddenly he wondered. “How old are you anyway?” He figured her for twenty-five or -six, because she was so mature in handling the battered women and children.
“I'm twenty,” she said proudly, as though it was a major accomplishment, and he almost groaned as she said it. That explained a lot of things, or at least he thought so. “I'll be twenty-one next summer.”
“Great. You make me feel like I'm robbing the cradle. I'll be thirty-three in August.”
“You remind me a lot of someone I once knew, a friend of mine. He's an attorney in California.”
“And you're in love with him?” Paul Weinberg asked unhappily. He knew that somewhere in her life there was an explanation for why she remained so distant. Her extreme youth was possibly part of it, but he knew there had to be more to it.
But she was laughing at him, explaining about David Glass. “No, he's married, and he's having a baby.”
“So who's the lucky guy?”
“What guy?” she looked puzzled. “I told you, there's no one.”
“Do you like guys?” It was an odd question, he knew, but these days, it was worth asking.
“I don't know,” she said honestly, looking up at him, and for an instant his heart fell, and then he saw something else as he watched her. “I've never dated.”
“Not at all?” He didn't believe her.
“Nope. Not at all.”
“That's quite a record at twenty.” It was also quite a challenge. “Any particular reason why not?” They had ordered pasta and were enjoying lunch by then as he asked her questions.
“Oh, a few reasons, I guess. I guess mostly I don't want to.”
“Grace, that's crazy.”
“Is it?” she said cautiously. “Maybe not. Maybe it's how I need to live my life. No one else can judge what's right for me.” And then as he watched her, he knew it, and he realized what a fool he'd been. That was why she'd come to St. Mary's. To help others like her.
“Did you have a bad experience?” he asked gently, and she trusted him, but only to a point. She wasn't going to tell him all her secrets.
“You could say that. Pretty bad. But no worse than what you see every day at St. Mary's. It takes a toll, I guess.”
“It doesn't have to. You can get over it. Are you seeing anyone? Professionally, I mean.”
“I was. We were good friends. She died in an accident last summer.” He was sorry for her, as she said it, she looked so lonely.
“What about your family? Have they been any help?”
She smiled, she knew he wanted to help her, but only time could do that. And she knew she had to help herself now. “I don't have any family. But it's not as bad as it sounds. I have friends, and a great job. And all the nice people at St. Mary's/’
“I'd like to help, if you think I can.” But the kind of therapy he had in mind frightened her too much. Although she knew that he would have seen her as a therapist too, if she'd wanted. But what he really wanted was to date her. And she knew she wasn't ready, and maybe never would be.
“I'll call if I need help.” She smiled at him, and they both ordered coffee. They spent a lovely afternoon, walking around the lake, and talking about many things. But he knew now that he couldn't pursue her. It was too dangerous for her. Just knowing how he felt had already made her step back and put some distance between them.
“Grace,” he said when he dropped her off at her place again, “I don't ever want to hurt you. I just want to be there, if you want a friend,” and then he smiled boyishly, and he looked almost handsome. “I wouldn't mind more than that too, but I don't want to push you.” And she was so young. That was part of it. He didn't dare press her if she wasn't ready.
“Thanks. I had a great time.” She had, and they had lunch a few more times after that. He wasn't ready to give up completely, and she enjoyed his company, but it never grew to be more than a warm friendship. In some ways he had taken David's place in her life, if not Molly's.
Between work, her roommates, and her volunteer work, things rolled along smoothly until the spring. And then Lou Marquez started giving Grace trouble again. She didn't know it, but he had just broken up with his girlfriend and he was looking for trouble. He started showing up at Grace's apartment. The others always teased her about him. He never explained who he was, nor did Grace, she just said he was a friend of her father's. But whenever he came around, he asked all the girls a lot of questions. Did they do drugs? Did they like modeling? Did they meet a lot of guys that way? He even asked Brigitte for a date once, and Grace had raised hell with him when she reported to him at his office.
“You have no right to do that to me. You have no right to show up and harass my friends.”
“I can harass anyone I want. And besides, she'd been giving me the eye for half an hour. I know what girls like that want. Don't kid yourself, sweetheart. She ain't no virgin.”
“No, but she's not blind either,” Grace flung at him, and he was madder than ever. She was getting braver with him mostly because he was so outrageous.
“Just be grateful I haven't told them that I'm your probation officer, and about your time in prison.”
“You do that, and I'll report you. I'll sue you for embarrassing me and causing me to lose face in my own home, and with business associates.”
“Bullshit. You're not gonna sue anyone.”
She knew she wouldn't, but she had to stand up to him. Like most bullies, she knew, he'd back off if she really pressed him. He stopped coming around as often after that, and she continued to report to him weekly in his office.
When Brigitte took a three month modeling job in Tokyo in May, they found another girl to take her place. This time it was Mireille, a French girl. She was from the South of France, from Nice, and she was nineteen. And everyone really liked her. She had a passion for all things American, particularly popcorn and hot dogs. And she loved American boys, but not as much as they loved her. She was out every night from the moment she got there. Which left Divina, Marjorie, Allyson, and Grace to hang out with each other whenever they weren't busy.
The Swansons gave a party on the Fourth of July at their country house in Barrington Hills, and all the models drove out there for the day and evening. Grace invited Paul, and he had a field day ogling the models. Her roommates thought he was very nice, and wanted to know if he was the guy she spent all her time with.
“More or less,” she said coyly. And they loved it.
And the girls gave her a birthday party after that. It was a big surprise, and they invited everyone from the agency, and Paul of course. It was Grace's twenty-first birthday. And afterwards, they and Paul sat in the patio, and she couldn't help thinking how far her life had come in the past year. He didn't know it, of course, but she had spent her last two birthdays in prison. And now she was here, with him, living with a bunch of beautiful girls, and working for a modeling agency. It was staggering when she thought about it sometimes. It made her think of Luana and Sally, and Molly and David. And it made her sad when she realized that she was doing just what Luana had said she should. She was taking them out, like memories, touching them widi her heart from time to time, but only for a fleeting moment. And then she'd go back to her own life, and remember them briefly. But they were gone, all of them. Forever. She hadn't heard from David since his son was born in March, and she had finally stopped writing to Luana and Sally. They'd never answered her letters.